Go Ask Daddy About Football Laundry, Wacky Words, and Our Next Outdoors Adventure

Referees and me. Hmm.

You know me. I’m mostly the agreeable type. Sure, I mutter insults to people who tailgate me and blow past me on the highway – all while snapping chats on their mobiles. But for the most part? Live and let live.

Except for, maybe, refs.

Not all refs, mind you. I’ve had enough run-ins with our striped adversaries to write a post on it. I’d be itchy afterward, though. I don’t really want to get into it. How bad does it get?

I wouldn’t go to Sports Clips for awhile because the stylists wore referee shirts.

No More Waiting for My Real Life to Begin

I’ve been hiding a long time.

I had to go with that opening line, because I’d promised someone I would. I’m glad, though, because this friend suggested it as we talked about how things are going for me now, and it perfectly tells the story.

No, I’m not coming out of the closet.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. You might have noticed more of a mindful bent on Mondays around here. I can’t help it. Between meditation on Wednesday, yoga on Friday (something old and new), and prayers for world peace on Sundays …

Go Ask Daddy About Saxophone Glory, the Cost to Watch and Celestial Endings

So, this one time, in marching band …

We got to play at halftime of a Colorado State football game in Ft. Collins. It was Band Day, and they played the University of New Mexico. I played baritone sax. I was first chair, I might add. The cheerleaders came with us.

Stick with me … this will tie together eventually.

Her name was Kaylie. (It was actually Shawna, but I don’t want to use her real name.) She was dreamy. Silky, curly brown hair, hazel eyes, braces. Sigh. The universe had a little fun that day and put Shawna – I mean, Kaylie – next to me on the bus.

Where We’d Take an Alien, in 6 Words

When I was a kid, I wanted to be friends with Elliott.

He’s the boy who befriended E.T. in the movie. He just seemed like the kind of kid I would like to hang out with. Looking back, I believe I probably admired his loyalty and courage in all that happened when E.T. came to town.

Every month, I collect responses for a post I call 6 Words.

If you’ve been around here a while you know Ernest Hemingway inspired this idea when he said all stories could be told in six words. I ask friends, strangers, bloggers, and strange blogger friends to respond to a prompt, in six words.

If I Could Spend a Day Alone … This is How it’d Go

I spend a day wishing for time to write after the kids’ bedtime.

Yet, when I get that time, I miss them. And I fall asleep. I’m always sleepy if I don’t keep the Coke Zero flowing. I slow to a crawl. Mind, body, and spirit. I institute process and procedure to possibly accomplish anything and also the leeway to set it all aside.

If I could just get a day, though …

What could you do? If Jesus or Buddha stuffed in an extra day – just a one-off, not an extra day. We can’t mess with the interval between Thursday night football and Monday night, or Sunday meditation service and Wednesday.

Go Ask Daddy About Genetics, Likenesses and the Bottom Rung of Fast Food Quality

photo credit: Leoraul Prop Shot Lighting, Finn Stormtrooper Helmet via photopin (license)

Back in my day, there wasn’t such a thing as a spoiler.

Well, unless you went to see The Cannonball Run before everyone else and could tell your friends how Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. place in the race. So that was me, age 9, in the middle of a Greeley, Colo., movie theater, with mind blown.

Before mind blown was even a thing.

I was watching The Empire Strikes Back – Episode V, for you dinkledorphs who insist upon that – when one of life my life-altering utterances occurred right there on the big screen. [It was hokier than I remember. See it here]. When Leia tells Han that Luke is her brother.

Go Ask Daddy About Paint Erasers, Ballpark Franks, and Dad’s Feeble Shot at Home Makeovers

photo credit: id-iom Clone trooper slate via photopin (license)

Once a year, I become a graffiti artist.

Not just me. The whole family gets involved. We brashly head to Wal-Mart in search of the cheapest cans we can get (because, budget), and go about our business, in broad daylight. They know we’re coming. Let them try to stop us.

How’s that for bad-ass?

I’ll do it twice more, this November and next, and nothing will happen to me. It’s not a gang logo on the side of a train car, actually. It’s the rock, at my kids’ school. I don’t get to help every year, but I love it when I get to.

Five for Friday: Movies to watch with your kids when mom isn’t lookin’

photo credit: DSC01754 via photopin (license)

I’ll buy chips for my kids on the way home from soccer practice.

Allow them to wrestle and chase each other. In the grocery store. Look the other way when they throw a little swagger in their soccer game. I’m a little funny, though, when it comes to movies.  My oldest is 14. She can watch PG-13 movies. But I cringe.

Not the language or violence, necessarily. But the themes. The innuendo. The … I dunno, sultry stuff.

Makes me want to throw up a little in my mouth and pee myself a little. I’d rather her see a car chase with a smash-up ending, hear more applications of the F-word, or get startled by a killer, zombie, or politician in the court room than to hear locker-room talk.